The Deadly Bipeds
Nov 29, 2022 15:07:46 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 29, 2022 15:07:46 GMT -5
The Deadly Bipeds
by
Radrook
I have been flying wounded and in fear amidst the deep silence of a world which once resonated with the vibrant sounds of life. Our skies. our seas and our forests, are now bereft of movement as far as my sharp eyes can see. No other avian creatures flutter the atmosphere as they once had for eons before the bipeds arrived in their great ships uninvited with their frenzied efforts at destroying everything that lives.
Instinctively we fled in droves. but were hunted down ceaselessly, without mercy. Now, of all our millions that once darkened our crimson, sky, only I alone remain.
In the distant horizon, framed by our setting red-dwarf star, granite peaks point accusing jagged fingers at a seemingly indifferent sky. One familiar, mountain peak offers me a last haven, a location where I might regain my strength before continuing the journey towards our planet's last surviving forest. There, perhaps the bipeds might hesitate to follow, or else I might be able to avoid detection deep within the subterranean limestone grottos beneath its thick foliage. I hope and I dream and aspire what I know is hopeless against their unquenchable thirst to plunge all other life into oblivion and their unflinching drive to be the only ones left. It is instinctive. It is inexorable. Yet, I must try.
I force myself on, flying erratically, taking advantage of occasional up-drafts in order to nurse my injured left wing which grows steadily weaker. I keep my eyes fixed on those distant lofty ledges where I might rest and recover before traveling on in search of a temporary sanctuary-a place of relative peace.
It will not be easy. Each agonizing beat of my mangled wing nearly plunges me into unconsciousness. If it does, then the seething, molten lava-covered plain below will quickly put an end to my struggle. Yet, as dismal as it seems, it is all I have to fear at the moment as I distance myself from the savagely relentless biped intruders.
I am losing altitude, skimming dangerously near the the deadly ground, and barely managing to avoid certain death. The tips of my wings are being singed as they skim the molten lava. But a strong updraft is lifting me upward towards my destination. Soon, there, high above, at thirty-eight-thousand feet, the air will be thin, but unlike my helmeted biped pursuers, I can easily breathe it. That will deter them. Yes! That must deter them at last!
Now I am finally there, gliding beside the grey, granite cliff walls. I recognize familiar caverns of my younger years when this very mountainside had been our flock's nursery. When the calm and vibrant winter days and benevolent, summer nights were festooned with high-pitched resounding mating-calls, and clumsy fledglings leapt cautiously from lofty nests in droves in order to test their iridescent wings against the cold, brisk mountain winds.
When we had proudly winged our way amidst its billowing purple clouds as hunters, and not as the miserable and fearful hunted which we later became when the bipeds tagged us a mere animals fit for slaughter. Since then, life has been a horified cringing at the slightest sound of approaching machinery. A rapid scattering to the wind at the slightest indication of a weapon aimed in our direction. A constant fearfing of gathering in great numbers as had been our traditional custom, for fear of providing the bipeds with an easier target.
So now, the few fleeting memories of tranquility are merely mirages. Now that the mountain no longer echoes with our proud calls and is bereft of all other living things.
Carefully, I glide over the remnants of our last nestings scattered on precarious ledges and on the barren granite floors of cliff-recessed caves. My eyes encounter only the scattered, bleached bones of those who had sought haven before me. Their massive, black, and lifeless, beaks gaping in one ghastly silent caw of final desperation. Their inert talons clawing at some invisible enemy which they had never managed to reach. Bloodstained egg-shells and shards embedded in the humid cave floors where purple maggots still scrounge and gnaw at the remains.
It wasn't the sanctuary I had been desperately seeking. But I have no other choice. My left wing no longer sustains my soaring flight, and I am slowly spiraling downwards towards a ledge at the edge of a large cavern.
I caw in agony as my wing suddenly goes completely limp, and the jagged edge of the broken bone finally pierces my feathered skin. Then, as I plummet slowly towards its dark foreboding entrance, ahead in the semi darkness, I see pale, wide, sneering alien face and hear the biped utter the familiar roaring, dreadful sound they always make in their irresistible urge to destroy.
“The last one of its accursed kind! Shoot it before it gets away! Then Radio NASA that we have finally cleared the planet for human civilian colonization. "